Does SharePoint Workflow Manager support SQL 2016?

[Gilbert Okello]

@Bill Baer, @Juan Carlos González Martín: SP2016 uses the same workflow Manager as SP2013 which supported SQL 2012.  

Does the workflow Manager support the newly released SQL 2016?

[#2]

AFAIK, there is not an official support of Workflow manager with SQL 2016 but @Bill Baer will confirm this for sure

[#3]

2016 is not listed on the supported platforms page at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193487(v=azure.10).aspx, 

That page has not been updated in a long time, WF Manager is not getting much attention from anyone at MS. 

@Joe Davies do you know anyone that can review and update the Workflow Manager documenation?

[#4]

Waiting for Bill's Baer answer :)

[#5]

I reached out to Microsoft support. They told me that Workflow Manager doesn't support SQL 2016.

[#6]

Thanks for the official confirmation :)

[#7]

Reference:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193487(v=azure.10).aspx

and 

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/SharePoint-2016-Workflow-acd5ba2a

Note: 

SQL Server 2014 with SP1 is now supported with workflow manager 1.0 farm topology only if all the servers in the workflow farm are patched with the CU2

[#8]

I wonder how worth is the first link that is dated in 2012...don't know why Microsoft has not updated workflow manager supported scenarios...it's clear 2016 may be not supported, but SQL Server 2014 has been supported for a while

[#9]

SQL Server 2014 is currently not officially supported by Microsoft; as you can see, that PDF wasn't written by a Microsoft employee. The MSDN documentation is currently correct - SQL 2012 is the highest version supported.

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Just an update on the support for Workflow Manager 1.0

SQL 2016 is not supported for WFM

SQL 2014 is supported but only for SharePoint based scenarios (SharePoint 2016 supports WFM 1.0 CU3 and SB1.1)

SQL 2012 is supported for all scenarios

There is no active development to support SQL2016

[#11]

Thanks. When will this appear in TN documentation? This is slightly different than the response than other private communities have received.

[#12]

Working on getting the official documentation updated...

A support case was open and the PG engaged which confirmed SharePoint 2016 with WFM only officially supports SQL 2014 and not SQL 2016. WFM stand-alone does not support SQL 2014 and SQL 2016 - supports only SQL 2012 and SQL 2008R2.

[#13]

Thanks for this useful update!

[#14]

Thanks @Johanson Sandrasagra for the clarification on the current status and future plans.

It is odd that there is no active development to support SQL 2016.

In our scenario, we plan to use SQL 2016 to take advantage of the BI features.  We are therefore forced to have two separate SQL installations - SQL 2016 for SharePoint Content DBs and SQL 2012 for Workflow Manager.

This setup doesn't look elegant in a production environment. 

It would be good if Microsoft considered support for SQL 2016 and clarified the future of Workflow Manager.  This will be useful information for organizations planning to migrate to SP2016.

@Trevor Seward, @Bill Baer, @Juan Carlos González Martín

[#15]

WFM only officially supports SQL 2014 and not SQL 2016. WFM stand-alone does not support SQL 2014 and SQL 2016 - supports only SQL 2012 and SQL 2008R2. Refer to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193487(v=azure.10).aspx.

Hope this helps!

Bill

[#16]

You do not need SQL 2016 Database Engine for SQL 2016 BI features. You can use SQL 2014 to support SSRS 2016. For SSAS 2016, that shouldn't be on the same box anyhow.

Expensive licensing, though. Purchasing at least 3 copies of SQL Server for at a minimum three different servers. As you can probably figure out, Workflow Manager is a deprecated piece of software. It has had no feature improvements (except for supportability updates) and the Azure team has moved on to Azure Service Bus.

[#17]

I'm not so sure SQL Server 2016 is not a requirement for SharePoint 2016 BI Features. The documentation released during the preview (I don't know if there is an update for the RTM) just stated the opposite. On the other hand, I'm not a SSRS specialist, but bearing in mind SSRS 2016 comes with many changes I'm not so sure you can deploy it on top of SQL Server 2014

[#18]

You can use SSRS 2016 with SQL 2014 DB Engine. Excel 2016 has some new DAX features that do not support SSAS 2016, but if you can live without them, you can continue using SSAS 2014 (a PowerPivot 2014 instance). Nearly all SSRS 2016 changes are only for native mode, SSRS 2016 integrated mode really didn't get much but a UI upgrade.

[#19]

Bill, We have two separate farms supported by SQL 2016 and on both farms WFM running. So, are you saying we should stop using not supported version? 

[#20]

What about Windows Server support, WFM is not supported on Windows Server 2016 correct?  @Bill Baer @Johanson Sandrasagra